The Dauntless That Would Not Die: The Remarkable Journey of the Most Battle-Scarred Aircraft of Midway
At dawn on June 4, 1942, the coral runway of Eastern Island at Midway Atoll was already alive with tension. The Pacific War, less than six months old, had reached a decisive moment. Intelligence reports confirmed that a powerful Japanese carrier force was approaching the atoll, intent on drawing out and destroying what remained of the United States Navy’s carrier fleet.
Among the aircraft lined up for takeoff that morning was a Douglas SBD-2 Dauntless dive bomber, Bureau Number 21106. Its pilot, First Lieutenant Daniel Iverson of the United States Marine Corps, was 26 years old. He had been flying the Dauntless for just nine days. Like most of the men around him, he understood the unspoken truth of the briefing that morning: many of them would not return.
A Mission Against Overwhelming Odds
Marine Scout Bombing Squadron 241 had arrived at Midway only days earlier, receiving nineteen newly delivered SBD-2 Dauntless dive bombers on May 26. The pilots had minimal time to familiarize themselves with the aircraft before being tasked with attacking the largest and most powerful carrier force the Imperial Japanese Navy had ever assembled.
The Japanese fleet included four frontline aircraft carriers—Akagi, Kaga, Soryu, and Hiryu—escorted by battleships, cruisers, destroyers, and over one hundred fighter aircraft. Against them stood a small group of land-based Marine aircraft, supported by Navy carr
ier groups positioned far to the northeast.
At 0605 hours, radar on Midway detected an incoming Japanese air strike. Orders followed quickly: all available aircraft were to launch and locate the enemy carriers before they could prepare a second attack.
Major Lofton Henderson, commander of the Marine dive bombers, led sixteen SBD-2 Dauntless aircraft northwest into open ocean. Iverson followed in Bureau Number 21106, with Private First Class Wallace Reed, age 21, manning the rear cockpit and defensive machine gun. Reed had never fired his weapon in combat.
Into the Fire
At approximately 0744, Henderson’s formation sighted the Japanese fleet. Four carriers lay below them, maneuvering in formation. Henderson chose Hiryu, the rearmost carrier, as the target and signaled the attack.
The Dauntless aircraft rolled into steep dives. Almost immediately, Japanese fighter aircraft rose to intercept. Faster, more maneuverable, and flown by experienced pilots, the defending fighters tore into the attacking Marines.
Major Henderson’s aircraft was hit and lost during the dive. He continued toward his target until his aircraft was consumed by fire and plunged into the sea. He was killed before releasing his bomb.
Iverson pressed his attack.
His Dauntless descended at a seventy-degree angle, the carrier deck filling his gunsight. Defensive fire surrounded the aircraft. Reed fired from the rear cockpit as enemy fighters closed in. The aircraft absorbed repeated hits—through the wings, fuselage, tail, and engine.
At approximately 800 feet, Iverson released his bomb and pulled out of the dive. Whether it struck its target remains unknown. What is certain is that the aircraft survived the pullout, despite sustaining extraordinary damage.
A Crippled Aircraft, a Determined Crew
With enemy fighters still pursuing, Iverson turned east toward Midway, roughly forty miles away. The Dauntless was barely flyable. Its hydraulic system had failed. Control cables were damaged. Oil coated the windscreen. The landing gear would not deploy fully.
Reed was wounded, bleeding heavily from his foot, but remained conscious. He signaled that he was still alive.
Iverson coaxed the damaged aircraft onward, monitoring failing instruments and rising engine temperatures. With no margin for error, he aimed for Eastern Island’s short coral runway.
The landing was uncontrolled but survivable. Touching down on a single wheel, the aircraft skidded to a halt as its propeller struck the surface. Rescue crews rushed in.
Both men survived.
Counting the Damage
When ground crews examined Bureau Number 21106, the scale of the damage became clear. The aircraft had been hit 219 times. Holes peppered the fuselage, wings, tail, and engine cowling. Several engine cylinders were cracked. Control systems were compromised. Under normal circumstances, the aircraft would have been scrapped.
But Midway had few aircraft and fewer replacements. Maintenance crews, led by Corporal Gasper Boufa, began repairs immediately. The Dauntless would fly again.
Of the sixteen Marine Dauntlesses that attacked that morning, only eight returned. The squadron achieved no confirmed bomb hits, yet their sacrifice played a crucial role. Their attack forced the Japanese carriers to maneuver defensively, delaying flight deck operations at a critical moment.
Within half an hour, Navy dive bombers from USS Enterprise and USS Yorktown arrived to find the Japanese carriers crowded with fueled and armed aircraft. The resulting attacks destroyed three carriers in minutes. Hiryu would be lost later that day.
The Battle of Midway marked a turning point in the Pacific War.
From Combat Veteran to Training Aircraft
Bureau Number 21106 remained at Midway, undergoing extensive repairs. Eventually, it was deemed too historically significant to return to frontline combat. After receiving a replacement engine, the aircraft was reassigned to the carrier qualification training program at Naval Air Station Glenview, Illinois.
There, over Lake Michigan, it trained new pilots in carrier landings aboard converted paddle-wheel steamers USS Wolverine and USS Sable. The most heavily damaged Dauntless of Midway now taught others how to survive.
On June 11, 1943, during a routine training flight, the aircraft struck the water short of USS Sable’s deck. The pilot escaped unharmed, but Bureau Number 21106 sank into Lake Michigan, coming to rest more than four hundred feet below the surface.
There it remained for more than fifty years.
Recovery and Rediscovery
In 1994, a Navy-sponsored recovery program sought historically significant aircraft lost in Lake Michigan. Using sonar and remotely operated vehicles, a salvage team located the wreck.
The aircraft was remarkably intact. Its patched bullet holes were still visible. The cold, fresh water had preserved the airframe far better than saltwater ever could.
On August 16, 1994, Bureau Number 21106 was raised from the lake and transported to the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida.
Preserving a Story, Not Just a Machine
Restoration took seven years. Museum staff cataloged every hole, every repair, every layer of paint. They preserved evidence of field repairs made under combat conditions. Beneath the rear seat cushion, they discovered traces of blood from Reed’s wound—quiet testimony to the cost of survival.
Rather than erase this history, the museum documented it carefully.
When the aircraft was placed on display in 2001, surviving family members of the crew attended. They stood before the Dauntless and saw, in aluminum and rivets, what words alone could not convey.
A Legacy That Endures
First Lieutenant Daniel Iverson did not survive the war. He was killed in a training accident in 1944 while preparing other pilots for combat. Wallace Reed survived World War II but was later killed during the Korean War. Major Lofton Henderson’s name lives on in Henderson Field, one of the most contested airfields of the Pacific campaign.
Bureau Number 21106 remains the only surviving SBD-2 Dauntless from the Battle of Midway.
It did not sink a carrier. It did not change the course of the battle alone. But it carried men into combat against overwhelming odds, brought them home, trained future pilots, and now tells a story that might otherwise be forgotten.
Visitors to the museum still pause before it, counting the holes, tracing the repairs, and realizing that victory at Midway was not achieved by a single strike or a single hero, but by collective endurance, sacrifice, and resolve.
In that sense, the Dauntless with 219 holes continues its mission—teaching, reminding, and bearing witness to one of history’s turning points.
